Amnesty For Boko Haram?
“For those surrendering we have shown all the human side of the military… We are screening and de-radicalising them for eventual re-integration back to society” – Major General Yushau Abubakar.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read and reread the above outrageous statement by Major General Abubakar, published in Vanguard of 12th November, 2015.
When did Nigerians agree to blanket amnesty for the mass murdering savages called Boko Haram? Have our Chibok girls been freed and fully accounted for?
With bomb blasts still claiming innocent Nigerian lives, have we totally crushed the Jihadi insurgency that we can afford the luxury of “no victor, no vanquished”, then quietly release the psychopathic killers into our midst?
The insurgents did not surrender out of the goodness of their hearts… because they’ve seen the error of their Jihadism. They surrendered because of overwhelming military offensive. Therefore it cannot be assumed they’ve turned over a new leaf and can be safely released back into society.
Major General Abubakar needs to understand that it is not the place of our military to amnesty mass murderers who wantonly slaughtered thousands of innocent Nigerians - “show the human side of the military… de-radicalize them (Boko Haram) for reintegration back to society.”
What does he even mean by “deradicalization”? Our soldiers are now Islamic experts that run Jihad detox programs? Something anti-Boko Haram imams, Emirs and even the Sultan couldn’t do? Really?
As a Muslim, Major General Abubakar cannot be unaware of Taqiyya– Islamic lying. The fact that a captured Jihadi claims to have turned a new leaf, must never be taken at face value.
As Americans have learnt the hard way, many released Gitmo detainees went right back to Jihading. Even the Saudi Jihad rehab hasn’t fared much better either.
Nigeria does not have a Gitmo to permanently detain these monstrous savages, nor should we waste scarce resources establishing one. Rather we should gladly do the Jihadis the huge favour of speedily dispatching them to Al-Jannah brothel where they can shag the 72 whores Allah promised them.
Since there has been no contrary statement from the presidency, we can conclude Major General Abubakar’s catch & release de facto amnesty is Buhari’s official policy.
Need we remind the president that Boko Haram perpetrated unspeakable heinous atrocities on hapless Nigerians?
Thousands of innocents (including school kids) were slaughtered, abducted and raped. Millions have been displaced; Churches & mosques bombed. The North east economy has been devastated with investors scared away from the country. Billions of naira that could have been productively invested, were wasted on a senseless war.
Yet our commander-in-chief is allowing the barbaric culprits go scot free, without even so much as a truth & reconciliation commission… not that it would do any good. What do we then tell relatives who have lost loved ones, or the millions of refugees and internally displaced whose lives have been ruined by Boko Haram?
In the run-up to the last election, Buhari and his spin doctors worked very hard to salvage his unsavoury reputation as a sectional Islamist - which cost him his first three presidential runs.
Now he is throwing away the benefit of doubt Nigerians gave him by coddling mass murdering Jihadis, while persecuting Nnamdi Kanu for operating a radio station in far away UK.
Clearly Buhari considers MASSOB/IPOB more dangerous than Boko Haram, even though the Biafra loudmouths haven’t perpetrated any massacres, or bombed any mosques.
With Boko Haram, Buhari is not even bothering with a trial and release pretence. What next? Offer the insurgent Jihadis cash handouts and lucrative security contracts as part of a sumptuous amnesty package like for Niger Delta militants, as the sectarian General once advocated in his infamous Liberty radiointerview?
The president needs to get his priorities right. It is not Biafra noise makers that threaten Nigeria’s continued existence as one nation. They are simply a symptom of the dysfunctional failed nation that is Nigeria.
All that is required to end the Biafra agitation is to fix Nigeria and transform us into a prosperous nation. Unfortunately, the certificate challenged mediocre of a ‘General’ lacks the intellectual wherewithal to accomplish that.
As abundantly evident from Boko Haram’s origins in the northern Sharia agitation (which Buhari vociferously supported), his fellow northern Islamists who refuse to keep their Arab religion to themselves and insist on imposing it on our polity, are the greatest threat to one Nigeria.
By refusing to punish his mass murdering coreligionists, Buhari is reinforcing the culture of mass murdering impunity that has been the bane of Arewa, with several orgies of wanton ethno-religious violence. One such massive bloodletting – 1966 pogrom of Igbos – led to the declaration of Biafra and civil war.
With each subsequent bout of religious violence in our Islamist North, strident calls for separation from the violence prone North (a la South Sudan) become louder among southerners… not just Igbos. Not surprisingly, one of the major grievances of Biafra activists is “they are killing our people in the North.”
It is therefore imperative that the President does not treat Boko Haram savages lightly. One Nigeria is at stake. In 2012, after a series of Boko Haram church bombings in Kaduna, Muslims and Christians freely slaughtered each other .
It could have been much worse, like in Central Africa republic where rampaging Seleka Jihadists provoked an all out Christian versus Muslim civil war, requiring the intervention of African and French troops.
Nigeria is not a small country that can easily be pacified by foreign peace keeping forces if another civil war breaks out. So we must not give a pass to Nigeria’s ISIS affiliate, which according to recent Global Terrorism index is the world’s deadliest Islamist terror group , even surpassing its Arab ISIS masters in death toll.
Nigerian lives matter. The lives of thousands of innocent Nigerians who perished at the hands of Boko Haram must not be cheapened by Buhari’s unceremonious pardon of their brutal killers and rapists. We must send a strong message of deterrence to mass murdering savages who do not respect the sanctity of Nigerian lives.
After speedy trial in a military tribunal where the burden of proof is lighter, all convicted Boko Haram combatants and non-combatants (sponsors, enablers, Imams etc) should be summarily executed.
The insurgency is after all a war prosecuted by our military, not criminal activity that can be handled by our civilian courts, which have so far been woefully inadequate in bringing Boko Haramists to book.
Non-combatant Boko Haramists cannot claim ignorance of the gruesome atrocities they willfully enabled. They must be wasted just as surely as those who pulled the trigger or detonated IEDs.
Nafata Bamaguje